The difference between a critical review and a mean, snarky, or negative review

What kind of 1-star review have you been hit with? Is it just critical, or is it snarky? Can a review be both critical and snarky? When does a review stop being a review and become merely entertainment, drawing more attention to the reviewer than the book?

Some collective wisdom from authors, bloggers, and librarians:

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Critical reviews are not negative reviews.

Know this distinction. Critical reviews involve thoughtful analysis and synthesis of the work at hand. They support their statements — both positive and negative — with what’s in front of them. They check their baggage at the door.

Negative reviews are not supported by text. Negative reviews don’t tell readers anything substantial about the book, but rather, about the reviewer. It’s self reflective, rather than text reflective.

I’ve come to the conclusion while there once may have been a division between review blogs that posted snarky reviews (I am thinking of Mrs. Giggles and Smart Bitches) and those that didn’t, I no longer see that division (if it ever existed).

… snarky reviews, I now think, are like any other reviews: good when they are informative, careful, and honest, bad when they aren’t.

Let’s talk about the negative “reviews” that authors have been lashing out at. They often involve animated gifs, swearing, and snark. They’re often quite funny. But here’s the thing, though. When a blogger writes a biased, hilarious, snarky rundown of a book they despised, he/ she is not writing a review. They are writing a post about a book. I’m not saying that bloggers shouldn’t write biased, hilarious, snarky rundowns of books. I’m saying that those rundowns are not reviews. Bloggers who regularly write them cannot expect to garner the same respect and treatment from authors that pro reviewers or non-pro reviewers do. They can’t expect authors to read their posts and learn something from them. And they cannot expect authors to not take it personally. They’ve made it personal.